In hip replacement surgery, a common procedure is to resurface the acetabulum to then place a cup therein. The implanted cup is typically interfaced with an implant head on the femur. The combination of the cup and the implant head replicate the hip joint, hence allowing movement of the femur relative to the pelvis. For this reason, the positioning of the cup implant in the acetabulum must be done with accuracy and precision. Indeed, the cup is preferably positioned according to given abduction and anteversion relative to the pelvis, to maximize a range of motion of the femur relative to the pelvis, to avoid leg length discrepancy, and to preserve the longevity of the hip joint implants.
Therefore, there has been devised numerous technologies to navigate the resurfacing of the acetabulum and the implanting of the cup therein, i.e., provide data to guide an operator in implanting the cup to a desired position and/or orientation. Cup impactors are conventionally used to forcefully insert the cup in the resurfaced acetabulum. Cup impactors are sturdy pieces of equipment impacted by an operator to drive the cup into the acetabulum. Depending on the tracking technology used to navigate the impacting movement (e.g., optical trackers being conventionally used), trackers are attached to the impactor to provide the operator with data pertaining to the position and/or orientation of the cup relative to the pelvis. However, systems using trackers typically require some calibration steps during the procedure, and other ways of approaching acetabular cup positioning would be desirable.